Writing Project Four:  Reading an Icon

For this assignment, you must write an essay of 1200-1500 words (5-6 pages), the purpose of which is to persuade your reader of your interpretation of a popular culture icon of your choosing.  Your essay should evaluate and interpret the icon by placing it within a larger, cultural context.  You may choose a person, a film hero, a toy, a character from a book, and so on, but your choice must have cultural significance; in other words, whatever person or object you choose must be one to which you can assign public meaning and value. 

You may choose from one of the following possible strategies for approaching the assignment:

1. Compare and contrast a current icon of popular culture with a pop culture icon of the past (for example, Madonna and Marilyn Monroe or Michael Jordan and Mickey Mantle). You may discuss how the two icons reflect two different historic eras. You may argue about a change in values or aesthetics or ideology which these two figures represent. You may choose to argue that two seemingly dissimilar figures are actually very similar (or vice versa). Whatever approach you choose, you should make an argument about relationship between the two figures, not just choose which one you like better ("Madonna has taken the precedent of Marilyn Monroe and exaggerated it to make us realize how fake that image was." Not "Marilyn was more talented than Madonna.")
2. Make an argument about the significance of a certain icon of popular culture. This can be an either positive or negative reading of the icon's significance. Your essay should include a discussion of how the icon is depicted in the media and used by media consumers as well as your analysis of what is significant about this figure. It may be necessary also to discuss for whom this figure is significant. (Example: Barbie has represented for three generations of American girls a contradictory ideal:  controlled sexual appeal, independent achievement, and overwhelming consumerism.)

Select as your audience for this essay a group of educated, informed readers who would find your subject of interest.  Do this by identifying a particular publication and targeting  its readers.  Aim for a specific audience--readers of Spin, Vanity Fair, Harpers, or whatever seems appropriate.

This assignment may seem to call for a new skill, but you are already an experienced evaluator and interpreter of cultural texts.  You assign public meaning and value to a friend’s Linkin Park concert shirt, to a Faith Hill album cover, to Calvin Klein’s newest ad, to the Harley that passes you on I85, to your little brother’s Sponge Bob figure, and so on. The difference in that kind of reading and the kind you must do for this essay is that the latter requires you to move from casual conversation and/or internal monologue to written discourse.  But by the time you write your essay, you will have read and/or discussed evaluative interpretations of several icons.  This material will give you models for your own essay.

Remember that your essay must persuade your readers that your interpretation is interesting and reasonable.  To meet these criteria, you must focus on public meaning rather than functional or private meanings.  This assignment calls for careful, critical thinking and writing, but you should also find it challenging, interesting--and even fun.

Grading Criteria:

·        The introduction presents a compelling thesis that is clearly defined and arguable.

·        All statements are supported by relevant evidence. Points are supported by multiple pieces of evidence and indicate an overall understanding of the subject.           

·        All evidence is discussed in a compelling way in relation to the thesis.. The discussion indicates a "lively mind at work."

·        The style is lively, relying on appropriate verb choice, specific nouns and modifiers; the sentences vary appropriately in length and rhythm.

·        Word choice, transitions and the arrangement of information makes for highly readable prose.

·        The essay is free of distracting errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics.

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